


pledge my allegiance and bite my tongue

by spock



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Angsty Schmoop, Dystopia, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Opposites Attract, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a given that all droids will develop some form of their own unique idiosyncrasies, but none of them are as decidedly <em>too much</em> as Ovi's is. He's got too much style, too much personality; it's a well known and much maligned fact that he'd nearly been recalled not all that long after his activation, but the test groups had loved him so much that he was granted an exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pledge my allegiance and bite my tongue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oanja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oanja/gifts).



> i waffled back and forth the entire time writing this on if i wanted to remove ovi's accent or not. in the end i decided to keep it, since it's such a huge part of his personality and charm. let's all pretend that russian companies don't care a lot about installing updated or complete language packages, or that their engineers like to troll non-slav countries by making their androids have thick accents when speaking something else. 
> 
> ' _fuck you and your english speaking culture!_ ' they laugh to themselves. ' _russia best!_ '

The majority of Ovi's offseason quality control checks are done in the KHL's training compound. It's not because of any league rule, but because Ovi can't quite shake the feeling that he's nothing more than an annoying sideshow to the NHL. The feeling grinds down on him over the course of a season, until there’s nothing left for him to do besides escape, even though it feels like he's running off with his tail between his legs. 

He knows that he's too passionate, practically reckless to a fault, willing to push through and force his way to the net, eager to take the long route to a goal when the one-timer he's got is statically more likely to get the job done at a safer distance, too, much less risk involved for him or the other droids he's up against.

> _It's that damn shoddy Russian engineering. We don't need that flashy junk in this league._

Don Cherry has always been Ovi's worst critic, never fails to make his opinions known whenever the Capitals have the misfortune of being scheduled into a HNIC spot. It's a decisive stance, one that he's had since his coaching days, Ovi knows, but it all seemed to come to a head when Ovi finally made it into the NHL. Ovi's everything he hates, and he makes sure that everyone knows it. 

Sometimes Ovi likes to think that maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it was just the one voice shouting into the void, but that's not how it is. Everyone and their mother seems to have an opinion on Ovi's style, and it doesn't help that he's constantly being pitted against Sid — Canada's latest, top-tier contribution to the world of hockey — who seems to match every byte of Ovi's sheer over-the-top personality with his own contained, carefully neutral one. 

The criticism Sid gets isn't nearly as scathing as Ovi's, not even when the Penguins finish worse off than the Capitals do, the two of their teams settling in at the bottom spots in the East during their rookie season. Yet despite all that, Ovi proves himself, thoroughly steals the Calder away from Sid, and even that comes back to bite him in the ass.

> _Models developed in North America work together as a_ team _. Get more than a couple Russian units on your roster at any given time and you'll think you've stumbled into a skills exhibition, not a team sport. All they care about is themselves_.

It's a given that all droids will develop some form of their own unique idiosyncrasies, but none of them are as decidedly _too much_ as Ovi's is. He's got too much style, too much personality; it's a well known and much maligned fact that he'd nearly been recalled not all that long after his activation, but the test groups had loved him so much that he was granted an exception.

After two seasons, Ovi's come to welcome the routine of going home. It's easier to remember that he's the way he is because people _like_ him that way, that they had the opportunity to wipe his disk clean and start fresh, and they rejected it. It's why he has himself shipped back to CSKA Moscow's training facilities for his post-season maintenance, the bitter feeling of finishing last in their conference compounded by the seemingly unending assessments made against his personality, even worse now than in his rookie season, because this season _team player Sid_ did what Ovi couldn't do: carried his team into a playoff spot while Ovi's season neatly wrapped itself up in a disappointing bow.

Ovi's option to return home is an unusual thing; teams are given a first come, first serve chance at picking new units off the Draft's show floor, and once a droid's been claimed the team owns its rights until they decide to trade them away or deem the droid obsolete. Only a select few units ever have the chance to return to their home countries, and even then it's only to demonstrate their nation's technological skill when pitted up against the rest of the world, not even close to some mental health retreat like Ovi gets, not least because nobody gives a damn about an android's mental health.

The Capitals would be well within their rights to keep him in DC, but Leonsis has always been indulgent towards Ovi, seemingly inclined to keep Ovi happy even though he has no real reason to. It's unusual, to say the least, but one of the many things that's been hardwired into Ovi's head is to not bite the hand that feeds him. 

In some way Leonsis is like a big kid, accommodating to his favorite toy because it suits him to do so. Ovi's always been great with children, feels like they're the only one's who truly appreciate him sometimes, so it's fitting that Leonsis is the only human in his life that understands Ovi's need to be reminded that his whole reason for existing is to play hockey, that he's good at it, no matter what anyone says — that the reasons why some people hate him are exactly the ones others give to single him out as their favorite.

 

* * *

 

Ovi's always been told that it's easy to mistake him for a human. He's never really thought about what that means: that he's able to pass, and that there are others who can't.

He's one of the few players that people say remind them of the way things were before the Robotics Act, though only about a quarter of the world's population can actually claim to've witnessed that era firsthand, the majority having caught the tail-end of the automation process. Androids doing the jobs that humans hadn't ever wanted in the first place had been one thing; them taking on professions deemed too dangerous to risk human lives on had taken more of an adjustment.

Besides, no matter how human Ovi may seem, he's still locked up in the arena with the rest of his teammates at the end of the day, which just goes to show how much _seeming human_ does for him, and as such he never gave it much thought.

Despite all that, Ovi's first thought when he's introduced to Nicky, the team's latest draft pick, is that there isn't a single person on earth who wouldn't be able to identify Nicky as a droid, not even blind ones, and Ovi's absolutely _fascinated_ with him because of it.

Once the staff has left and they're all locked in for the night, Ovi crowds his way into the corner Nicky's claimed as his own and says, "Little brother robot, since when Sweden made angels?"

Nicky's been stone-faced all day, the poster child of robotic stoicism; Ovi expects him maybe to roll his eyes at Ovi's teasing, like Greenie does, or possibly even frown and run away, like Sid does whenever they're forced together for one league reason or another. What he's not expecting is for Nicky to duck his head and smile down into his lap, mumbling, "We're not robots," in reply.

"Oh," Ovi breathes, without thinking, more to himself than anything else. He stares at the small portion of Nicky's smile that he's able to see, and quickly finds himself concocting ways to keep it there. He's never seen an android do that much of a one-eighty; everyone he's ever met has always been kind of silly, though never as much as Ovi himself is, or they couldn't crack a smile if you ordered them too. 

He hadn't known that there were droids like Nicky in the world, ones that can do both so perfectly, maybe even more human-like than Ovi himself is, because Ovi's larger than life, but Nicky has this nuance about him, one that Ovi wants to solve, to understand, more than anything. 

"Oh," he repeats, with more bass in his voice this time, trying to cover up his sudden wonder. "Nothing to say about angel thing, then?"

 

* * *

 

Nicky has the latest round of energy cells, which means that he doesn't need to spend much time charging. His eyes light up when Ovi tells him that their technicians leave a couple laptops lying around for droid use when they're bored bored at night. Ovi wastes five hours watching Nicky tap around the internet before he fully realizes the magnitude of his mistake.

"How is fun for you?" Ovi complains for what has to be the seventh time. "I hate even being in the same room as that thing. Lets go kick around football. Nicky, come."

Nicky's been ignoring Ovi's bitching for the most part, but he finally tears his eyes away from the laptop's screen for a few seconds to frown and say say, "We're _different_. Humans keep cats and dogs around, right? They even look at monkeys at the zoo."

Ovi doesn't know what to say to that.

In Russia, he'd hardly had any contact with technology outside the odd item he'd need for self-monitoring his performance. He hadn't even used a phone before he'd come to America, so the first time he and Sasha had been forced to grab one of the laptops and google a question to settle an argument once and for all had been a harrowing experience for the both of them, to say the least. "Doesn't feel like different when those things are in room," Ovi finally admits. It's something he's rarely allowed himself to think, and the first time he's ever said anything remotely along those lines out loud.

Nicky's fingers stop typing, hovering over the keys as he looks at Ovi for real now. Ovi wonders what he sees. They stare at each other until Nicky pats the free cushion on the two-seater couch he's sitting on. Ovi rises up from where he'd been spread out on his back on the floor and joins him, sprawling his legs out so that his thigh is pressed against Nicky's, needing the contact, somehow — the comfort. 

The computer still freaks him out, but not so much that he's willing to turn down an invitation like this. "What you do on it?" Ovi asks, squinting at the screen.

"Read," Nicky says it like Ovi's an idiot for even asking. "And looking at things. Did you know that some androids make art?" Ovi watches as Nicky starts typing again, fingers flying, bringing up pictures that Ovi can't decided if he likes or not. "Their main job is to help disabled humans be creative, but some of them make their own things and post them online." He looks at Ovi out of the corner of his eye and asks, "Which do you like best?"

It feels like a test, so Ovi takes it seriously, staring at the screen, processing all the various patterns and colors and shapes in each. His eyes keep being drawn back to one more than the others, though he has no idea why. It happens enough times that eventually he tells Nicky it's his favorite.

They go on like that, Nicky showing him more pictures, sometimes reading him a few things aloud and asking him to pick which of story or poem he likes best. Before Ovi knows it, the sun's already risen, and they only have about an hour before the staff's set to return for the day.

Nicky closes the laptop and returns it to the desk, plugging it in to charge. Ovi's almost shocked to realize that the sight doesn't make him feel nearly as uneasy as it had just a few hours prior, when Nicky had unplugged it so that he could take it with him to the couch. He thinks that maybe Nicky's right; all animals sleep, after all, and humans don't seem to be unnerved by the sight of other animals resting. Maybe there really isn't any reason for him to not to be around and use other forms of technology.

Maybe they _are_ different, even if humans don't treat them like they are.

Ovi feels ashamed just thinking it, for some reason, and quickly disregards the thought.

Just before they're about to enter the players lounge, Nicky grabs hold of his arm to hold him back, the two of them hovering just outside of the door. "Did you know," Nicky says, and when he speaks his voice is so quiet that Ovi is forced to increase his hearing volume just to make out the words, "That in Finland, the players are given a big house to live in together? They don't force them to stay at the rink."

Ovi hadn't known that at all.

 

* * *

 

After each twenty-five game stretch, their practices are called off in favor of a maintenance day. Team technicians keep an eye on their day-to-day usage and issues, but with so many makes and models on each team, it's just easier to bring in representatives from each manufacturing house, since they know how each screw and circuit for each of their models should be operating anyway.

Ovi makes a show of waving to Nicky as the team splits up to see their respective technicians, Sasha playfully dragging Ovi away as he pretends to grab at Nicky's retreating form.

His debugging goes fine. They quickly scan through his memories, making their own copies of the games he's played for their research and development, rolling their eyes at the things he's gotten up to in his downtime. Eventually, someone will go through every single thing he's seen, felt, experienced, and said since his last inspection; they need to make sure that his fast and loose style of play hasn't led to any kernel panic.

"The boss wants more flashy guys like you," one of his technicians tells him, smiling like he wouldn't mind it either. "We've gotta make sure that you're as sustainable as you seem to be." He tells Ovi that the upcoming model has tentatively been called Yak, and Ovi finds himself hoping that his existence will make Yak's introduction into the league a far less antagonistic affair than Ovi's own had been.

When he's finally free, Ovi plops himself down into the hallway and waits for Nicky to be finished as well. He waves at his teammates as they slowly finish up their appointments and head back to the player lounge, some of them ready to charge after a day of being poked, prodded, and accessed; others talking about going into the gym to burn off the energy that's been pent-up inside of them after having been forced to sit still for so long.

Nicky ends up being the last one released. He stalks down the hallway with a frown marring his face, blowing past where Ovi's sat without even looking at him, Ovi forced to scramble onto his feet and run after Nicky just to catch up with him. 

"What happen?" Ovi asks, worriedly. He can't imagine what it would take to get Nicky — who's never _not_ cool, calm, and collected — worked up like this. Nicky stops walking so quickly that Ovi crashes into him, the two of them toppling into the wall, Nicky's forehead brushing against Ovi's temple.

"When they went through my memories they—," He compresses his chest, faking a large inhalation of breath that neither of them need, something that all androids learn to mimic, picking up on human mannerisms to make their owners feel more comfortable around them, so science has said; Ovi's started to wonder if that's really what it is, or if sometimes all living things need to _breathe_ , even if they don't need air. 

"They said it's _good_ that we're friends. That they'd _worried_ about me. They're going to _monitor it_." Nicky spits out each words as if the very letters themselves disgust them, getting himself worked up all over again when he hadn't even begun to calm down.

Ovi grabs hold of Nicky's shoulders, squeezing tightly. He doesn't know what the problem is, why Nicky's so upset. Everything they do is monitored, he doesn't understand why Nicky suddenly has a problem with a fact of their lives, something they can't change. "I don't—, " he tries to say, feeling like an idiot for not understanding, and a failure too, because Nicky always understands everything that Ovi feels, and Ovi never seems to be able to return the favor.

"It pisses me off," Nicky tells him between clenched teeth. "They think they can give me permission to have friends. As if I would listen to them if they said we _couldn't_ be friends."

For the first time in his life, Ovi actually realizes that they _could_ do that. They could tell Nicky never to speak to him, and if he refused, they could make it so he was forced to. _That's fucked up_ , he thinks to himself. He wants so badly to say it out loud, to tell Nicky that he understands, that he doesn't like it, that he's happy that they have permission, that he'll do anything to make sure that Nicky's crew continues to think of him as a good influence — but he can't, because it's bad enough that he's come to this realization himself, and he worries that his own technicians will start to question his friendship with Nicky because of it. 

In another couple months, someone will scan back through his thoughts and come across this, and thinking is one thing, but Ovi doesn't know what they'll do if he actually says anything out loud.

 

* * *

 

Lately, Ovi's been getting on the computer all by himself. It's slow going, but he manages it. His favorite thing to do is watching other droids play sports; he'll pull up the highlight packages for the day's basketball games and watch them all, sometimes twice. Nicky even took pity on him and showed him how torrents and livestreams work. From that point onwards, Ovi was able to watch the full games with ease.

"Very strange," Ovi notes, teasing, not looking away from the monitor. He noticed that Nicky had come into the room a good ten minutes ago, but Nicky never actually made it past the doorway. "Staring at me like this." Finally he looks at Nicky, and sees that he's actually grinning, leaning against the frame of the door with his hands buried in the pocket of his hoodie as he watches Ovi.

"It's good to see you on the computer, is all."

"See me like this all the time," Ovi dismisses. "Me and my buddy, Lars the Laptop."

It makes Nicky laugh, though when he says, "You're so funny," it doesn't sound like he means it.

"You laughed," Ovi insists, because that always counts for something when it's Nicky doing the laughing.

"I'm your friend," Nicky insists right back. "I have to laugh at your stupid jokes, even though they aren't funny at all. That's what friendship is."

 

* * *

 

There's some commotion in one of the rooms, but the guys are always wrestling or fighting, so Ovi doesn't think anything of it until someone says, "Shit, I think there's something wrong with the Swede."

In the end it turns out to be a false alarm, and he feels absolutely terrible for thinking that, because Nyls is done for the season, his disk skipping and shorting out. They'll fix him, eventually, and that should be the most important thing, but it's not, not for Ovi anyhow. Above everything else, he's glad that _Nicky_ is all right.

Even after Ovi realizes his initial misunderstanding — after he pulls Nicky aside into a spare room once the commotion has died down, hugs Nicky as tightly as he can, pulls away and lightly pats Nicky down, checking him for any damage, trying to make a joke of just how strangely he's acting, of how scared he is — he can't stop thinking about what he would do if something actually did happen to Nicky.

They're built tough; it takes a lot for them to be injured in a game, and even then it isn't hard to fix their bodies. Processing errors, though, or kernel panics, lost data, disk skips: all of those are things that they have no control over, and that could potentially wipe them out of existence forever. Sometimes manufacturers will re-release a unit, but they're never the same; only their original, unaltered copy is used, because there's no reason to implement a backup of their memories, of their thoughts and experiences, their feelings.

He keeps thinking about it, over and over again, his system caught in a loop, and even though he _knows_ that he's glitching, he has no idea how to stop it.

Sasha finally notices that there's something wrong with him that next morning, that he's only half there, and even saying _half_ is a generous measurement. The team's technicians switch him into standby mode as they try to figure out what's gone wrong with him, so he's able to drift like that, detached from his thoughts enough that he realizes there's no logic in obsessing over things he can't change. 

Eventually he calms enough that he's able to process things normally again, the fear that he's discovered now settled into a new residence at the back of his mind instead of taking up all of his thoughts, no longer making him freeze with it, and he's released to join the team for the tail-end of practice.

Nicky skates right over to him the moment Ovi steps onto the ice, asking, "Are you all right," and ignoring the curses their coach shouts after him for bailing in the middle of a drill.

Nicky's worried, eyes frantically flicking around Ovi's face, as if he'd be able to spot whatever was wrong with him that way. It makes Ovi realize that Nicky has as little control over Ovi's well being as he has over Nicky's. For some reason, the thought makes him happy. It feels a little less scary knowing that they're both in this together.

 

* * *

 

The whole team celebrates when they finally clinch a playoff spot. Ovi gives Nicky a hard time the entire night, saying that he's spoiled, that he's going to have too-high standards for the rest of his career because of how amazing his rookie season's been.

"What wrong with having high standards?" Nicky argues. "I want good things for us! I'm sad that I can't go back in time; your rookie year should have been like this too." Nicky's words play over and over inside his mind for the rest of the night, until he can't think of a single thing but them. It isn't like the last time this happened, though, because they don't frighten Ovi; instead, they delight him. It isn't long before everyone realizes that he's gone to the world, and they leave him be, Ovi smiling off into the distance as his teammates make fools of themselves, dancing around the lounge as music plays overhead.

Things do eventually calm down, and that's when Ovi makes his move.

He takes Nicky by the hand and leads him into the technicians room, closing the door behind them and then crowding Nicky up against it as he whispers, "Close eyes." Nicky looks dazed, still high on their victory, but he does as he's told, eyes sliding closed so that his blonde, synthetic lashes fan across the tops of his cheeks. Ovi leans in and rubs their noses together, grinning at the smile that spreads across Nicky's face, at how Nicky still keeps his eyes closed, obedient when it suits him to be.

"You're imagining this," Ovi mummers, closing his own eyes. "I'm imagining. No video, see? Just feelings, and you're embarrassed at thinking, but you're so happy. Happy make the playoffs, happy to be on same line as Ovi." He pauses to press their mouths together, kissing Nicky gently, and he's never heard of droids doing this, not ever, but it feels right, like he's able to connect to Nicky deeper this way, the same way humans can, their dry lips catching together slightly. "Techies are gonna see thoughts and it's embarrassing, but you not care, because thoughts not count." He kisses Nicky again.

"What a stupid prank. You think they'll even buy it? You think they think we're actually kissing? How silly," Nicky agrees, playing along, and his lips catch against Ovi's when he speaks. Ovi decides that it's his most favorite feeling in the world.

 

* * *

 

They manage to claw their way to a game seven in the first round, but in the end that's all they manage, their hopes and dreams crashing down in overtime.

Ovi isn't exactly sure how he feels; he's glad to've finally made the playoffs, is happy that the team is trending upwards, doing better with each year, but at the same time he wants _more_ , wants to be advancing to the next round, wants to win the cup, wants to win it again and again, back-to-back-to-back, and he's pissed off that this isn't going to be the year for them, when everything else had been going so well. Worse, he feels like he's ruined Nicky's perfect rookie year, and he tells him as much, finishing up lamely with a pitiful, "Sorry."

"Shut up," Nicky says, and he actually looks angry. "No, you know what? Tell me something funny."

Ovi has no idea what to say, can't think of anything silly right now, anything funny, not with how down he's feeling, so instead he finally blurts out the secret he's been keeping from Nicky all spring. "I'm stay here for offseason." Nicky smiles — grinning full on, ear to ear, something Ovi's never seen him do before, another part of Nicky that's been revealed to him, unexpected and delightful and so much more than what people think droids are capable of, but none of them know Nicky, not like Ovi does. 

It's so big that Ovi wonders if maybe he said something else, if maybe Nicky misheard and thinks that they're advancing to the next round, their names preemptively being engraved onto the Cup, because there's no reason for anybody to smile that much otherwise, not at the prospect of Ovi bothering them all summer, but before Ovi can ask if Nicky heard him right, Nicky's pulling him into a hug.

 

* * *

 

Ovi doesn't like to think about things all that hard, and he's not terribly great at expressing his feelings or persuading people to do what he wants. The one thing that makes up for those faults is that he's bullheaded enough to try anyway, to never give up. Somehow, things usually work out for him, and Ovi's always taken that as a sign that he's doing something right in his life.

Still, he's superstitious, and worse than that, he's already gotten his own hopes up, and he doesn't want to disappoint himself, let alone the rest of the team. Most of all, he doesn't want to see Nicky's face if Ovi's plan doesn't come through, so he plots and plans and keeps it all to himself, rehearsing all the things he wants to say in the back of his mind, waiting for the day his appointment's set to happen. He sneaks out of the player's lounge on the day of the big morning before anyone else is awake, hoping against all hopes that this'll be another thing in his life that somehow just works out in his favor.

 

* * *

 

He comes out of Leonsis' office in a daze, giddiness welling up inside of him when what he's managed to accomplish slowly starts to sink in for real. Unsurprisingly, Nicky's there waiting for him, even though he shouldn't have any idea where Ovi had went off too that morning. Ovi wouldn't be surprised in the least to learn that Nicky has a lojack on him.

"What did the owner want?" Nicky asks in a rush, looking worried. "Is everything okay? They're not trading you, right?" It's insulting enough that Ovi actually feels his good mood dampen a little.

"Nobody in right mind would trade _me_ ," Ovi scoffs. "Maybe they trade you!" Ovi realizes his mistake the moment the words leave his mouth, so he hastens to add, "Except they not trade you. Is good news! Stop turn everything dramatic!" Nicky looks the opposite of convinced, but he's always been too skeptical for his own good. Ovi puffs his chest a little as he recaps his the contents of his meeting. 

"I tell Leonsis about how in Finland, team get a big house to live in," Ovi starts to brags a little now, because he did this for Nicky, know that this will make him happy, and he can't wait to finally tell him about his plan, that his plan _worked_. "So I say, maybe our team should try, at least over offseason? May make team play better. No other NHL team do this, could be advantage! And he say: _okay, we try_ , because nobody knows how smart Ovi is like Leonsis knows, so of course he say yes, Nicky. Now, who is your favorite?"

 

* * *

 

Just about the only thing Ovi cares about more than hockey is Nicky's happiness, and the only reason Nicky's happiness isn't his top priority is because he's not programmed that way.

Except, Ovi's starting to feel like maybe, _just maybe_ , that could change one day.

**Author's Note:**

> you said you wanted anything for these two, and the first place my mind always goes when i see the word _anything_ is **androids**. and then you said you liked worldbuilding and my mind went _android hockey league_. my definition of harlequin actually may be far removed from the intended tropes but...lets not talk about that; i tried to incorporate some of the genre's tropes into this as best i could anyway. 
> 
> i hope you had a good holiday and a very happy new year ♥ thanks pената for the beta!


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